Muscle Head: How Exercise Strengthens Your Brain

Trending News: Your Brain Changes (In Good Ways) The More You Work Out

Why Is This Important?

Long Story Short

We already know that exercise is good for the brain. But a new study tells us (partly) why. Workouts stimulate the production of a protein dubbed "Miracle-Gro" for the brain.

Long Story

Let’s start with the brain part.

The link between an active lifestyle and a healthy brain has been established for a while now. Exercise is known to create new cells in the hippocampus, the part of the brain associated with memory and learning, for instance.

That’s because exercise stimulates the production of a protein called brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), which is affectionately called “Miracle-Gro for the Brain” by sciency types. You can get into the hows and whys if you like, but suffice it to say that for our purposes, BDNF is very good for the brain.

But what’s the link between exercise and the increased production of BDNF? Here’s where the study party begins.

Researchers at NYU’s Langone Medical Center collected a bunch of mice and split them into two groups: one with an exercise wheel in their cages, the other without. After a month, the mice’s brains were examined and, as expected, the runners had more BDNF than the non-runners.

Looking closer, at the microscopic level, they realized that the runners’ brains contained significant amounts of ketones, a chemical compound created by the body breaking down fat.

Now pay attention: The ketones are vital in fending off a particular kind of molecular cluster that blocks the BDNF gene from producing BDNF. The sedentary mice’s brains were much more covered with the clusters than the active ones’, thus inhibiting the body from pumping out all that delicious, healthy BDNF. The runners’ brains were free to produce more, thus contributing some oomph to a stronger, healthier brain.

But before you start bragging about the level of ketones in your brain, consider this: ketone production only begins after an hour or so of vigorous exercise, once the body has exhausted its stores of sugars and begins to burn fat.

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question: Who really feels like doing an hour of vigorous exercise a day?

Disrupt Your Feed: The researchers aren’t advocating you do. Research into the relationship between exercise and the brain is still pretty young, so the best thing to do now is to just maintain a reasonably active lifestyle.

Drop This Fact: It isn’t a bad idea to get that BDNF gene humming. Low levels of BDNF have been associated with depression and suicide.